Finding Spirituality Through Meditation

So you want to begin adding spiritual practice to your everyday life, but you don’t know where to start. Whether you currently are engaged in a formal religion or if you simply feel a calling to get in touch with your highest self, adding activities to enhance your connection to the divine is definitely worth the investment of your time and energy. As I’ve talked about throughout this series, meditation is one of the most impactful things you can do to reap the types of benefits you seek in a relatively short amount of time. The practice of meditation involves focusing your thoughts and releasing the stress of your everyday life. Taking this mindful step daily can have powerful effects on your life. Let’s examine this idea further by looking at the ways you can find spirituality through meditation.

Move Beyond Consciousness

We often hinder ourselves from reaching our goals due to issues such as fear, skepticism or outside influence. Meditation lets you overcome such things by putting you in touch with your higher self, leaving behind your ego. You’ll begin to gain clarity on your experience, thus having the ability to move forward in a more purposeful manner. Moving beyond your ego allows you to flourish in a more authentic way and to live in a way is unhindered.

Enhance Connections

This unfettered spirit attained through meditation brings you more clarity and the ability to leave behind your ego and the limits it can put upon you. Getting in touch with your higher self through meditating will open you up to new connections, as well. When you approach the world in a more open manner, not held back by fear or societal constraints, you’re more apt to connect with others on a more authentic level. You won’t be held back by limiting factors and can reach for the kinds of relationships and interactions that are important to you. While spirituality can be a solo pursuit that is quite personal, meaningful relationships do nourish your soul.

Improve Empathy and Compassion

In fact, it’s been shown that meditation can even make you a more empathic and compassionate person. These are important character traits among highly spiritual people. Feeling compassion for others, as well as yourself, allows you to get in touch more readily with your higher purpose. A 2013 study by Harvard and Northwestern University researchers showed that the participant group who underwent eight weeks of training in two different meditation types responded more compassionately to a staged scenario involving providing assistance to a person in distress. Only 15 percent of those in the non-meditating group made an effort to help a person struggling with crutches, while 50 percent of the meditation group acted to assist.

Lessen Emotional Reactivity and Increase Calm

As reported by the American Psychological Association, meditation can decrease one’s levels of emotional reactivity. Researchers studied people with various experience in the practice of mindfulness meditation. They found that meditation significantly helped participants to disengage from pictures that were emotionally upsetting, focusing their attention on a cognitive task instead. The ability to balance emotions with practical considerations is a valuable skill when it comes to reaching a high level of spirituality.

Meditation offers so many tangible benefits. It’s been proven to be good for your body and mind. It also goes deeper by helping to prepare you for spiritual pursuits. Once you begin a practice of meditating, you’ll see for yourself the ways in which it can help you to grow as a person.